Five Things To Know About Scarlett Johansson
One of Hollywood's top-grossing actors, Scarlett Johansson is walking the red carpet twice at Cannes, for her directorial debut with "Eleanor the Great" on Tuesday and for Wes Anderson's film "The Phoenician Scheme", which premiered Sunday.
Here are five things to know about the teen star turned Hollywood A-Lister:
When baby Johansson was born into a Jewish family in Manhattan in 1984, early signs suggested stardom was ahead.
Her parents named her after Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone With the Wind", and at a young age she was drawn to tap dance and theatre.
Barely into double-digits she made her screen debut, and soon after Robert Redford cast her in "The Horse Whisperer" for her first major role.
Then, just shy of 20, she hit the big time with Sofia Coppola's art-house classic "Lost in Translation".
In the film, which unfolds in the alienating surroundings of a Tokyo hotel, Johansson manages to touch the heart of an ever-sardonic Bill Murray as well as charming spectators and critics worldwide.
Over the next decades, Johansson has starred in a string of hits and top directors have queued up to cast her, from Wes Anderson and the Coen brothers to Jonathan Glazer and Christopher Nolan.
Catapulting her into movie stratosphere, she joined the Marvel universe as the indomitable Black Widow in 2010 and made eight films with the franchise.
During this collaboration she topped the Forbes list of highest-paid actresses and featured in hits including "Avengers: Infinity War" (2018), one of the top-10 highest grossing films of all time according to IMDB Pro.
But Johansson the box-office megastar has also missed out on, or sidestepped, plenty of big roles.
There was a potential "Mission Impossible" movie but this was shelved, officially due to scheduling clashes.
She did not land the lead in "Les Miserables", which went to Anne Hathaway, who won an Oscar for it, nor did she get Lisbeth Salander in "Millennium".
But she was plenty busy, often starring in lower-budget films that wowed critics and audiences.
These included a stand-out performance as an alien in Jonathan Glazer's remarkable "Under the Skin" (2013), shot in wintery backstreets, abandoned houses and seedy minivans.
So far, she has not won an Oscar, but she was nominated for best actress and supporting actress in 2020 for her roles in indie favourites "Marriage Story" and "Jojo Rabbit".
It is unmistakable and Johansson has capitalised on it, though sometimes with unwanted repercussions.
She brought her deep, distinctive vocals to the voice of Samantha in "Her" (2013) by Spike Jonze, about an artificial intelligence system Joaquin Phoenix falls for.
But in May last year Johansson accused tech firm OpenAI of using her voice in their own generative AI ChatGPT, which responded by modifying its tone.
She can also be heard in hit animations including "The Jungle Book" and the two "Sing" films.
Johansson has also released two albums, "Anywhere I Lay My Head" in 2008 and a year later "Break Up".
They did not rock the music world, but reviewing the inaugural album, Pitchfork called it a "curio" while praising the "wide textural range" of Johansson's voice.
Never reluctant to speak her mind, Johansson has been outspoken on various social and film-related issues.
She has supported victims of harassment, pushed for gender-equal pay and spotlighted the impact of streaming on theatrical releases.
She is also willing to take more controversial stances, not least in defending Woody Allen -- who has cast her in three films -- when much of Hollywood has shunned him over a long-running sexual assault scandal.
"I love Woody. I believe him, and I would work with him any time," she told The Hollywood Reporter in 2019.
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DW
27-05-2025
- DW
Beyond Trump's film tariffs: Is Hollywood really in decline? – DW – 05/27/2025
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Int'l Business Times
24-05-2025
- Int'l Business Times
Highlights From Cannes As Film Festival Wraps Up
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DW
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- DW
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But the opera also goes beyond the trial itself: The witnesses in the courtroom on stage bring to life the memories of those who survived the death camps — families that were ripped apart, women who were tortured, children who were shot dead. An opera about the Holocaust? Is it ok to stage an opera about the Holocaust? Should such a thing be done? These were the kind of questions Erwin Simsensohn asked himself when he first received a phone call, asking him whether he would consider directing the opera. "It sounded ... strange ... a piece about the Holocaust, set to music?" he told DW just a few days after the opera's opening night at the Jewish Community Center in Bucharest. Simsensohn is a well-known figure in Romania's Jewish community and himself managed the Jewish Community Center a few years ago. Erwin Simsensohn is director general of the State Theater in Constanta and director of the opera 'Eichmann's Trial' Image: privat However, he says, his reservations dissipated after his first conversations with Daniel Jinga, director general of the Bucharest National Opera. When he then heard the music that had been composed specially for the opera, any last remaining doubts were swept aside. "Music doesn't necessarily have to mean entertainment. It is not necessarily profane to stage an important subject in this way," he says. A personal priority The 45-year-old director is certainly used to challenges. Simsensohn divides his time between Bucharest, where his wife and children live, and Constanta on the Black Sea coast, where he is director general of the state theatre. In the summer, he organizes a nine-week culture festival in the city. He also does voluntary work for Jewish organizations. This doesn't leave much time for projects that are close to his heart, such as the opera about the Holocaust, which, he says, is important to him personally. The reason for this is that although Romania played a particular role in the Holocaust, it would appear that for a long time, no one in his native country wanted to hear it. Romania and the Holocaust Under dictator Ion Antonescu, Romania was one of Nazi Germany's closest allies during World War II. The Romanian regime increasingly restricted the freedoms of Jews in the country and escalated violence against them. Jewish citizens were dispossessed and humiliated, deported to ghettos and labor camps in Transnistria, and tortured and killed in bloody pogroms. The Jewish Museum of Bucharest in the former Templul Unirea Sfanta synagogue Image: Tobias Zuttmann Erwin Simsensohn's grandfather was also deported to a labor camp. Thankfully, he survived, but the Holocaust has left an indelible mark on the family's DNA. "That affects me personally," says Simsensohn. While Simsensohn cannot forget, his native country long repressed, played down and in some cases even outrightly denied its own involvement. It was only in 2004 that Romania first officially acknowledged its historical complicity in the Holocaust. Back then, a report drawn up by an international commission showed that about 280,000 of the 380,000 Jewish people in Romania and territories controlled by it died at the hands of Romanian forces. Fostering a culture of remembrance Following publication of the report, Romania took its first cautious steps towards a culture of remembrance. October 9, the day on which the deportation of Jews to camps in Transnistria began in 1941, was declared National Day of Commemorating the Holocaust. Plans for a Holocaust Museum were drawn up (but not, as yet, implemented), the National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust (INSHR) was established in Bucharest, and a Holocaust Memorial was built. "For most people, it is not about remembering the Holocaust, but about hearing about it for the first time," says Simsensohn. Just two years ago, the subject of the Holocaust and the history of the Jews was introduced into the school curriculum. The Holocaust Memorial in Bucharest, Romania Image: Tobias Zuttmann A recent study by the INSHR shows that only one-third of Romanians know that their country was complicit in the annihilation of Jewish people in Europe. Dictator and war criminal Ion Antonescu, who was instrumental in the murder of Romania's Jews, is to this day seen by the majority of Romanians as a "great patriot." Devoted to the theater Simsensohn grew up in Piatra Neamt in northeastern Romania. His parents are engineers, but — like their son — love the theater. In high school, he founded a theater group, which quickly became a success. For his final project during his training to be a director, Simsensohn chose a theater adaptation of the book Born guilty, which was about children from Nazi families. When he presented the project to his class, a fellow student asked him whether he was not by now fed up of the subject of the Holocaust. "She said, 'It's as if someone in your family died and you keep the corpse on the table in the living room, show it to everyone who comes in and refuse to bury it.'" Although Simsensohn is a calm person, some of the rage he felt on that occasion is visible when he recounts the story. He inhales sharply before continuing: "I told her: 'I will put these people on the table in the living room.'" To emphasize his words, he brings the side of his hand down sharply on the table. Far-right candidate stokes fear among Romania's Jews To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video "If we bury these people, we forget who killed them. We are talking about men, women, children. They didn't just die. These people were killed because they were Jewish," he says. The rise of the right To this day, says Simsensohn, he considers it his responsibility — and that of other artists, too — to keep talking about the subject of the Holocaust. "It is important, not only to educate people about what happened back then, but also to warn them about the dangers of right-wing extremism. Unfortunately, this is an extremely topical issue," he says. Far-right parties received a third of all votes in Romania's parliamentary election in 2024. The strongest among them is the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR). The AUR's presidential candidate, George Simion, made it to the runoff of the presidential election, but came second behind Nicusor Dan. Something, says Simsensohn, has gone wrong. "Today, antisemitism is stronger than it was a few years ago. The threat for us is growing." "Eichmann's Trial" was intended to be a one-off performance. But following considerable positive feedback, it will be performed again in October. This is a success both for Simsensohn and the entire team behind the opera because, as Simsensohn knows, the fight against forgetting is perhaps more important now than ever before. This article was originally published in German.
